Old Film - Chapter Three

The red brick home at the end of the street stood in stark contrast to the homes along the rest of the road. A cylindrical structure graced the left side of the home ,giving it the appearance of a tower from a castle. Dark grey slate shingles spiraled into a peak on top of the tower. Brenda, Shane, Josh, and our new friend Lisa stood in front of a gloss black chain link fence, which wrapped around the home. It had a double hinged gate blocking the entrance to the driveway. Josh bent forward, fiddling with the lock that held it closed. Brenda stooped next to him, gazing over his shoulder. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

He stopped what he was doing, stood up straight, and held out the small pieces of metal he held in his hands. “Would you like to do it?”

“No, no, you go right ahead. I’m just a girl.”

He rolled his eyes and returned to trying to open the lock.

Lisa leaned against the right fender of her green station wagon, dragging on her cigarette. She opened her mouth, allowing the smoke to travel through the air while she said, “Explain it to me again, why do you guys need to get into the Huckabay mansion?”

I scratched my cheek and squinted my eyes at her. I was reluctant to feed her the same story we’d been feeding her, but I was still scared that she’d turn us in to the authorities if she decided we were crazy and potentially dangerous.

She squinted her eyes back at me. “Look, I know that you’ve been feeding me a line of bull since the first day I ran in to you guys. You’re going to have to trust me, you don’t have a choice.”

“It’s just that…I don’t want you to think we’re crazy.”

“Too late.”

Josh shrieked and kicked the gate open. “Got it!”

Brenda slapped his back. “I knew you could do it.”

Shane laughed, “Yeah, sure you did, that’s why you kept taunting…”

Lisa interrupted, “Look, I need to know what’s really going on or I’m calling the cops. I’m not helping you guys break into someone’s home while being jerked around. I don’t care whose house it is.”

I blurted out, “We’re from 2022 and there’s a camera in that house that brought us back to 1974.”

Josh let out a long nervous laugh. “Ha, you’re funny. From the future. Your crazy man.”

Lisa raised her eyebrows at me. “Seriously? You’re going with the time travel story?”

I pulled Josh’s phone from my pocket and held it out to her. She cocked her head at it.

“Take it. Have you ever seen anything like it? Can you even guess what it might be?”

She curled her fingers around it, pulled it toward her face. "It’s a black plastic box.” She turned it over in her hands several times. “With some sort of glass insert.” She handed it back to me. “What does that prove?”

Brenda sighed and sauntered over to us. After reaching into the back pocket of her black jeans, she pulled out a twenty dollar bill and held it out for Lisa. “What’s the date on this?”

Lisa took it from her and inspected it. “It says it’s from 2012.” She shook her head. “Where did you guys get this?”

I responded, “From the future, where we’re from.”

Lisa reached into her car, through the window and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the dash. She smacked the bottom of the pack and a single cigarette poked out from the rest. She pulled it free with her lips, lit it, and sat back against her car’s fender. A swirl of smoke danced around her face. “My dad said that you guys barged out of our basement storage closet and that he had no idea how you guys had gotten in there without his notice.” She took another long drag and blew the smoke into the air. “He said they’d been playing poker all day.”

I nodded once. “Yep.” I pointed at Shane. “That’s his dark room in the future. We’d been looking at the film he had developed when we jumped.”

“Jumped?”

Josh said, “We don’t know what else to call it, although it’s more like we were pushed, it wasn’t anything we did.”

“So, you’re going with the story that you were pushed into the past?” She laughed.

I sighed. “Look, we just want to get back.” I pointed toward the brick house. “We believe that we can get back if we get in there and find the camera.”

She threw her cigarette down and ground it with her heel. “I’ll tell you what. If you can prove to me that there’s some sort of time travel camera in that house, then I’ll help you with whatever you need.”

I smacked my head. “You don’t understand, it looks like any other old fashioned camera. There’s nothing special looking about it other than it somehow it took our picture and then pushed us into the past.”

She took a deep breath. “Alright, well, let’s go have a look at it.” She waved her hands as if trying to push us into the house.

***

The moon shone through the window and spread across the bed. The room was in pristine condition, like it was still occupied. The five of us stood in front of the closet where we had first discovered the camera. I pulled the brown tweed suit from the closet and fished the camera out of its pocket. A faux wood grained strip wrapped around its body with a silver lens in middle of it. Two metal knobs sat atop it’s frame.

Shane took it from my hand and inspected it. “Looks like the film is almost, if not completely used.” He scratched the back of his head. “I don’t get it. When I developed the film, there were no other pictures on it except of us.” He shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Lisa held her hand out. “Can I see it?”

He handed it to her and she squinted her eyes. “You’re trying to tell me that this camera is supposed to be a time machine?”

I rolled my neck. “We’re not trying to tell you anything. We knew exactly where this camera was, right?”

She pursed her lips, handed the camera back to Shane, then walked over to the bed. “Yeah, that’s true, maybe you’d been in here before?”

I closed my eyes and breathed in and out. “If you let us develop the film, then you will see pictures of us coming into the house. If you we’re on this film, then will you believe us?”

Shane smacked his forehead. “Oh no.”

I looked at him. “What?”

“Logically speaking. If we develop this film and we’re on it, then either we’ll be transported right back to the same day we jumped to the first time, or we’ll jump to nowhere.”

Josh stepped in front of Shane and balled his fists. “What are you saying, that we’re stuck here?”

Shane nodded. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. This camera is from the sixties or seventies, and if my guess is correct, it was made in 1974.”

Brenda and I asked in unison, “What?”

I continued, “How can you possibly know when the camera was made?”

“It’s just a theory, but, we’re in 1974. If I’m right, then the camera brought us to when the camera was made and would simply do so again.”

Josh’s shoulders relaxed and he unclenched his fists. “The solution is easy then. We write a note to ourselves for when we break into the house. We tell ourselves not to develop the film and then we’ll never travel back in time.” He puffed his chest out.

I patted him on the back. “Dude, that’s brilliant!”

Shane cleared his throat. “Not exactly. That would cause a time paradox because if we don’t go back in time, then we won’t write ourselves a note. If we don’t write ourselves a note, then we’ll never have a note to tell us to not go back in time, so we’ll develop the film and go back in time.”

Brenda held her palms against her temples. “Dude, stop. I can’t even.”

Lisa was sitting on the bed and giggled to herself.

Josh looked sideways at her, then turned back to Brenda and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay Brenda, I think. Basically, he’s saying that if we had a note we wouldn’t come here, but we came here so we never saw a note. What he isn’t considering though is that Robby isn’t here. So maybe Robby saw the note and never told us. Or, maybe we told him not to show us the note so that we would come back here and he would stay there to take new pictures.”

Brenda looked at my hand on her shoulder and then looked up to stare at me with her famous I’m going to kill you stare. “You’re not helping, Josh.”

Shane slapped Josh on the back. “Woah, dude, that’s brilliant! I’ve never known how smart you are. Have you been pretending to be a moron all this time?”

Josh flinched at being slapped and then rolled his eyes. “Really nice dude. I’m a moron?”

Shane held up his hands in protest. “Sorry, that wasn’t what I meant. I was just trying to say that I never knew how smart you were.”

Brenda said, “Truth hurts.”

Josh chuffed. “Enough tearing down your buddy Josh. What are we going

to say to get Robby to understand the situation. It has to be clear enough that he knows what we’re saying.”

Shane was shaking his head again. “That doesn’t solve the camera problem. He can’t just use a new camera and expect it to have whatever voodoo on it that this thing does. But even if he did, we’re not there for him to take pictures of to bring us back to our present.”

Josh’s face lit up. “Right, then we find out who put the curse on the camera, then get them to do it in the future for us.”

Brenda rolled her eyes, “Assuming we can find said person, assuming said person is still alive in the future, assuming, assuming, assuming.”

Lisa stood up from the bed and put one hand on my shoulder and one on Josh’s. “I know a guy.”

The four of us stared at her with wide eyes.

***

The green station wagon rolled down the highway. Lisa’s fingers drummed the steering wheel as Father to Son by Queen blared from the car’s speakers. Bright rays of the mid-day sun glared off of the windshield and shimmers of heat rose from the blacktop of the highway.

Brenda’s fingers laced with mine as I lay my head on her shoulder. We rode in the front seat next to Lisa. Josh and Shane slept in the back seat.

Brenda had to raise her voice to compete with the song on the radio. “I still don’t understand. Where are we going? Who is it that you know there?”

Lisa turned the volume down half way through Brenda’s last sentence and then said, “This girl I attend college with claims to be a witch. I never believed her. I thought she was making that crap up, but after meeting you guys, I’m starting to question that. As soon as Shane said Voodoo I remembered my friend that I’d written off as crazy after the first time I met her at college.”

I interjected, “I thought you said you knew a guy?”

“It’s just a saying. I just meant that I know someone. Hopefully she’ll help us out, assuming she’s actually who she claimed to be.”

***

The pungent stench of stagnant water wafted into the car’s windows and the crunching of the tires on the unpaved seashell driveway filled the air. A small shack with an orange clay shingle roof grew in appearance, as we approached. Four crooked tree trunks held up the front of the porch. A lady with long grey hair tucked behind her ears rocked on the front porch as she puffed on a corn cob pipe. Her collar bone was visible through her threadbare grey blouse. Three empty rustic rockers sat next to her, one of which was on its side. Lisa walked up the porch in front of us. She had one foot on the ground and one on the first step. “Is Leander home?”

“Who’s asking?”

Lisa finished walking up the steps and extended her hand toward the woman. “I’m Lisa and these are…”

The woman stood to her feet, walked past Lisa’s outstretched hand, and stared down at us. Her eyes drifted between each of our faces as she sniffed through her clogged nose. “You four don’t look right.” She pointed her crooked middle finger at us. “Something’s wrong with all of you.”

Lisa cleared her throat. “Please, I’m Leander’s friend from college. I drove almost ten hours to come see her. Is now a bad time?”

The lady turned to face Lisa. “It’s always a bad time.”

Josh walked up next to Lisa and met the woman’s hard gaze. “Will you please help us? We’re stuck here and would really love to get home.”

She stared down at him with her steel grey eyes and croaked. “I cannot help you. Who said I could?”

Lisa turned from the old lady and knocked on the door.

The lady grabbed her elbow and spun Lisa around. “Don't you ever touch my house again.”

A woman appeared at the door. She wore shoulder length brown hair and had piercing blue eyes. She was thin like the older lady, but looked much healthier. “Grandma, stop it. Let go of my friend.”

The old woman coughed again and then stormed off of the porch. She pushed past us and ambled down the unpaved driveway. The younger lady brought Lisa in for a hug. “I’m sorry about my grandma, she’s still living in a time when anyone who didn’t look like they belonged here were a danger to though of us who did. She doesn’t understand that times have changed. We live in the time of peace and love, right?”

“Leander, I’m sorry to show up unannounced with a crowd of kids, but I was hoping you could help them.”

Leander pushed back from Lisa and smiled. “Of course, like I told you during last semester, anytime you need my help just let me know.”

Josh asked, “Even magic?”

Leander smiled from ear to ear for a second and then chuckled. “Come on inside.” She turned and walked inside without waiting to see if we’d follow.

***

The scent of lavender, burning hickory, a sour vinegar smell mixed inside the home. There were various small animal carcasses hung throughout the small shack along with dried herbs and flowers. We sat around a coffee table which had carved wooden bowels and too many knickknacks to count around a large leather bound black book. The book was well worn, had turned corners, and covered half of the table. Leander sat motionless while we explained what we needed, where we were from, and what we were hoping she could do for us. Her hands remained folded in her lap and the only movement I detected was when she would move her face to look at whichever one of us was talking.

Once silence hung in the air for a minute she stood up and straightened down her silver lace trimmed blouse. “I think what you’re asking is beyond my abilities.”

The color drained out of each of our faces. Josh jumped off of the couch and approached Leaner. “Please, we cannot be stuck here. We have to get home. You’re telling us that’s not possible?”

She stroked Josh's arms and shook her head. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that I cannot help you, but I do know who can. However, she will not be able to until she takes care of a few things first. I will explain everything to her and I promise you that she will have a solution. I know it.”

She turned toward Lisa. “Can you take them back to your house and wait there with them? Do they have somewhere they can sleep until my sister Jocelyn can help?”

Lisa nodded and we followed her back to her car. We piled back into her green station wagon, but she stayed outside the vehicle talking to Leander for twenty minutes. They eventually hugged each other and Lisa got into the car. “She said it could be up to a six month wait. My parents aren’t going to be cool with a group of ages kids hanging out in their home for half a year.”

Josh slammed the back of the seat. “What are we supposed to do for six months? Sleep on the street?”

Lisa turned around in her seat and grabbed Josh’s shirt collar. “Calm down freak! Hit my car again and I’ll throw you out on the street.”

Brenda laughed. “I keep trying to tell him.”

Shane said, “True story. Brenda’s always threatening his life.”

Josh lowered his eyes to the floor of the car and slumped back in his seat.

Brenda cleared her throat. “Alright, I have a friend that’ll be more than happy to put you guys up for a few months.”

I said, “Six is more than a few.”

Lisa waved her hand in the air. Then she turned the key and the car roared to life. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you guys are taken care of.”

With that, we were on the road and headed to our new home of possibly six months.